


in the valley of the night

by sunflowerbright



Series: Hotel California [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Depression, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I consider us friends,” Enjolras finally says, his voice as cold as ice. “I’m sad to hear that you don’t.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the valley of the night

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this so early because of the overwhelming response to _'Icarus'_ that made me so goddamn happy. Thank-you for being the best readers any writer could ever want!

**_1830_ **

Combeferre needs a lock on his door. Part of the reason why he hadn’t was because he lived right next to Bahorel, who would surely kill anyone who dared try to enter the premises without permission; but he had lately come to realize that Bahorel at times brought a world of trouble home with him, and the trouble was sometimes more… well, trouble than it was worth.

Today, though, it is not Bahorel who is barging in through his door in the middle of the night, demanding he tend some wound or other, after one of the man’s numerous fights.

It is Grantaire, and at first Combeferre thinks the man is simply dead-drunk, as he falls face-first on the carpeted floor, as soon as Combeferre appears in his sight, having heard the sound of the door being opened. It is not the first time he has found the other man passed out from drink, and has had to help him recover or just take him to a place where no-one may try to loot him or worse: but he gets closer, and he sees… it.

Blood. On Grantaire’s sleeve and spreading from his chest unto the floor, and there’s _too much of it._

“Hi,” the man weakly says, scaring Combeferre almost more than the blood did, blue eyes peeking open to look up at him. “I do believe I am bleeding. Could you maybe do something about that, good doctor?”

Combeferre thinks he is going to bandage Grantaire up _so that he can kill him himself._

He gets him up and over to the bed, and after the initial shock of it all, it is not as bad as it looks: bad, surely, and a little voice in the back of Combeferre’s head is telling him how, had Grantaire not come, had passed out or simply decided to wait (the man does not know what is good for himself), he would have very likely gotten an infection or something of the like and…

The thought is not finished. He works in silence, noting that the smell of alcohol around Grantaire is somewhat lesser, that his eyes are unfocused more from pain than drink, that the wounds on his torso are from something sharp like a knife or even a sword, and that there are long lines of bruises across his chest and back, as if his attackers had been beating him with sticks or the like as well.

He tries to remind himself of Grantaire’s general exploits, the time he came to the Musain with bruises just like these, from the single-stick or from boxing.

But never knife-wounds. Never like this.

“Why did you come to me?” he finally asks, the silence becoming too much: the light of the candles and the moon shining in through the window is highlighting Grantaire’s injuries in the most horrible of ways.

Grantaire blinks in confusion. “What?”

“Why not Joly? You speak with him a great deal more than you do me,” Combeferre knows that Grantaire does not dislike him, much as he seems to dislike his ideals: but the friendship between Joly and the artist had seemed to grow more easily, the hypochondriac quickly accepting that Grantaire’s teasing’s was part of the way he communicated with others.

Grantaire takes a while to answer, hissing in pain a few times, but making no other sound. His breath is a little shallow, and he is pale, but he seems sound enough of mind.

“I trust you to be more discreet,” he finally says. “Bossuet or their mistress – the one with the lovely eyes, what is her name?”

“Musichetta.”

“That’s it! They might have been there. I don’t trust that many people not to… speak out of turn.”

Combeferre frowns, finishing up and instructing Grantaire to lean back against the pillows, resting for a little while. He busies himself with packing away his supplies, the bloodied clothes, handing Grantaire one of his own to borrow. The other man takes it with a thank-full nod.

“I take it you wish to keep this from the others, then?” he asks, turning around to face Grantaire now. He wants to see his face when he answers.

If there was one word for the expression on Grantaire’s face right now, it would be _broken._

“Yes,” he whispers. “Please.”

Combeferre has seated himself beside Grantaire on the bed before he can even think twice. “I do believe there is confidentiality between doctor and patient,” he quietly says. “But I would… I would wish to know what had happened.”

Grantaire looks pained. “I would rather not say.”

“Is that so?”

“That is so.”

Combeferre’s only response is silence, because sometimes, he finds, that is the best way to go about things. And it doesn’t take long, exhaustion or hurt or both winning out over whatever steadfast promise Grantaire had made of himself not to tell.

“I wanted distraction,” he begins, voice unsteady and eyes lowered in shame. “I…” he stops again. Combeferre leans back.

“I was under the impression that the drinking was a distraction.”

Grantaire grits his teeth; if it is against the inner or the outer pain, Combeferre is not sure. “It is,” he says. “It usually is.”

“But it wasn’t enough today.”

The dark-haired man turns his head away so that the doctor can’t see, looking at the candles on the low table, flickering as they burn themselves down. “No,” he whispers. “Today…”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to: Combeferre knows what is bothering him, what has gotten him in such a bad mood as to almost suicidal, today of all days.

 _‘We must fight,’ Enjolras had said, his voice reaching every corner of the café, every man and every woman present. ‘We must stand up and be done with this injustice!_ We must fight!’

They had to fight.

“Enjolras is a remarkable man,” Combeferre says, as distraction, as guidance, as a fact. “What he spoke of today…”

“You are all going to die,” Grantaire’s voice is too loud in the dark of the night, echoing across the room. Combeferre flinches, suddenly glad that Grantaire’s eyes are not on him to see this action.

“That is not a certainty.”

“You are fools if you do not consider it a possibility.”

“I never said I didn’t,” Combeferre protests, years of patience still not wearing thin. He recognizes the fear in Grantaire’s voice. The anguish. “We all do. We all know what might happen.”

“What _will_ happen.”

“Grantaire,” Combeferre allows himself to sound slightly exasperated now. “Just as we cannot know that we will succeed, neither can you know that we won’t.”

He lets out something like a laugh. “I do not believe that you will.”

“I didn’t think you believed in anything,” Combeferre teases, moving so he is sitting beside the injured man. “But could it be that you believe in failure?”

“I thought that was a cynic’s lot,” Grantaire shoots back, but he is almost smiling, lips curving upwards. “To expect failure at every turn. That is what God has granted us men, after all.”

“You don’t believe in God.”

“I believe in nothing,” Grantaire says, harshly, steadfastly, and Combeferre knows it to be a lie.

He doesn’t let the following silence stretch out for long. “Did you start the fight?” he asks.

Grantaire swallows heavily. “Yes.”

“Because of Enjolras’ speech today?”

“Because of that and everything.”

Combeferre draws in a calming breath, reaching out to touch the top of the bandage he has laid around his friend. “Let me ask you something, and if you do not wish to answer, simply be silent.”

“Go on.”

“Do you wish to die?”

“I am not sure I wish to live,” Grantaire answers immediately, as if this is a fact as clear as the colour of his eyes or the turning of the years. Combeferre has to stop himself from grasping the other man in a tight hold. His heart aches for him, he cannot help it.

“Why?” he ends up asking, not sure how else to articulate… how else to… how else to maybe prevent that Grantaire should show up bloodied on his door-step again, only half a thought even pulling him towards safety.

He could have bled to death in the gutter. He _would_ have bled to death in the gutter. Neither of them is sure which one will happen the next time.

Grantaire leans his head back slightly, staring up at the ceiling, as if the stars are shining through and he can see and map them in this very moment. “The world is grey,” he says. “It is grey and black, and what colours there are, are dulled and washed-out and it… it hurts to look at, Combeferre. I am an artist – am I not supposed to see the world in colour?”

Combeferre’s hand is on his shoulder now, not willing to let go. “You cannot see it?” he asks. “Not even when the sun shines?”

“Especially not when the sun shines,” Grantaire says, and sounds miserable, and Combeferre wonders which sun they are talking about.

“You must know there are people who care for you. People who would miss you, should you continue on this path.”

“None. How could they?”

“They could. They can. You are a man of great intelligence.”

“Squandering it away. Unable to use it,” Grantaire hands grasps for nothing in the air, as if they are feeling empty without a bottle there. “You do not understand: you see the world in colour, do you not?”

“I am not sure that is an apt enough metaphor,” Combeferre mumbles. “I know that you see colour somewhere. But of course I may not be wise enough on the subject to speak of it. I know you speak from experience, and I merely from the impression gained from you.”

Grantaire turns his head to look at him. “When I do see colours… those are the worst moments, almost. That is when I know what I am missing.”

“And yet I am fairly certain that you would not be without those moments,” Combeferre says, feeling desperate now, needing to say something that would make the other man not throw his life away like this.

“How important is one man’s happiness in the face of the whole?”

Combeferre does not have an answer – or rather he does, but not one that the cynic would like to hear, or one that would convince him of anything but what he already thinks to be true. But Grantaire’s eyes are dull in pain, there is still blood on the floor, and Combeferre has leaned forward to gently press his lips against Grantaire’s before he can think much of it.

He pulls away again shortly after. “There are those that care,” he insists. Grantaire’s eyelids flutter open, having closed in surprise and whatever other emotion had followed that surprise.

“My, Combeferre, I never knew you felt this way,” he teases, and he still looks wrecked and wretched, but there is… there is some semblance of _colour_ back in his voice, and Combeferre suddenly understands the metaphor. Suddenly finds it accurate.

He lets out a laugh. “Oh, I would only flatter myself to feel such for you. I know where you heart belongs.”

Grantaire suddenly looks worried. “And where does your heart belong, Combeferre?”

The doctor gives his shoulder a slight squeeze. “With the people,” he says. “Where I do think it will remain. The people and,” he adds. “My friends.”

“You said it yourself: I don’t believe in anything.”

Combeferre lets go. “And I know my own words to be untrue.”

“You are deluded, surely.”

Combeferre merely smiles at him. “I believe, then. Let that be enough for both of us.”  

 

 

*

 

****

**_A couple of hundred years later_ **

“We are not watching _‘How to Train Your Dragon’_ ,” Enjolras protests amidst the noise and general chatter that comes from the people cooped into his and Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s living-room.

Eponine shoots him a look like she has been mortally offended. “We are,” she says. “We absolutely are.”

“I want to watch it,” Feuilly says. “I haven’t yet.”

“Just put it on,” Bossuet mumbles, his voice sounding funny because of his newly acquired cold. Musichetta sends him a smile from her place sprawled on the big arm-chair that everyone usually fights over, busy texting Joly who had stayed home, convinced he had gotten Bossuet’s cold and was dying.

“What’s the matter with you, you usually like animated movies,” Eponine grumbles as Enjolras continues glaring. “Would you quiet acting like a twelve year-old?”

“I am not…” Enjolras beings, but then quickly shuts up as Grantaire shuffles past, muttering apologize to anyone he may step on, which is namely Feuilly who is sprawled out on the floor, busy having a thumb-war with Azelma.

“’Scuse me,” Grantaire mumbles, balancing at least seven different cans of soda and currently blessing his jobs as a bartender: he is fucking ace at this. “Azelma, did you say you wanted Pepsi or Fanta?”

“I said I wanted both,” the red-head replies from the floor.

“Ah, see, _that’s_ why I’m currently feeling like your handbag. Your phone is in my pocket as well by the way. It started ringing in the kitchen, but I couldn’t be bothered to answer it for you.”

Azelma shoots up from the floor to wrestle her phone away from Grantaire, and Combeferre and Enjolras are only just quick enough to catch some of the cans he lets go of in his attempt to shoo away the attacking teenager.

(they’re not quite quick enough to avoid one of the cans hitting Bossuet on the head, but their friend merely grumbles and smiles as soon as Musichetta foregoes the comfy arm-chair in favour of squeezing in next to him and kissing the bruise)

Eponine throws herself into the arm-chair before Feuilly can even react to this free opportunity, and before Grantaire knows it, Azelma has gotten her phone back, Combeferre and Feuilly has tripped him down unto the sofa next to Enjolras, and put the movie on, Enjolras groans completely ignored.

Well, ignored by the others. They’re really not ignored by Grantaire, who is currently very aware that Enjolras leg is flush against his, their elbows brushing, the other man’s quiet breathing so close and _fuck fuck fuck_.

Their fearless leader, in his new campaign to be nice to their resident drunkard, actually turns his head slightly and smiles at Grantaire when the movie starts, and Grantaire finds himself smiling back, because _how could he not_ , and that’s the point where Enjolras shifts a little and ends up pressed even closer and _ohgod._ Grantaire is not going to last through the entirety of this movie, he’s really not.

It’s when Enjolras hand brushes against his knee that Grantaire leaps from the couch like he’s been set on fire, mumbling something about getting the popcorn and storms out into the kitchen.

He needs fresh air, and a few minutes alone, and most of all he needs to not be pressed so close to the man he loves and the man who has made it abundantly clear that the sentiment is not in any way returned.

He is startled by a noise, surprised when it is Combeferre that enters, the man’s smile oddly hesitant.

“Hey,” Grantaire mutters, because he isn’t really sure what else to say.

“Are you alright?” Combeferre asks, in his own worried way.

“Fine!” he hastens to reassure him, hastens a little too much probably, gesturing vaguely to the microwave. “Popcorn,” he ends up muttering as way of explanation. Combeferre smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, walking over to the table and sitting down. “I gathered.”

Grantaire shoots him a glare. “Oh, bother. I’m sorry, I’m a mess right now.”

“We’re going to work it out,” Combeferre then says, and Grantaire turns around to stare at him.

“The popcorn?”

“Ha, I was talking about the whole… reincarnation-thing.”

“Ah,” Grantaire feels a tightness settle in his chest, because damn it, he doesn’t want to talk about this. He’s enough of a mess without… this.

“There must be a reasonable explanation as to why you don’t remember.”

“Sure,” _like the fact that I’m an underserving mess._

“Or the fact that we are even… I mean, here, in the first place.”

“I vote zombie apocalypse.”

Combeferre laughs. “You what?”

“We’re all here to prevent the zombie apocalypse. Makes sense. You guys can build another barricade, to keep them out.” Grantaire can’t help but smile a little himself, busy focusing on the popcorns currently popping away inside the microwave, and listening to Combeferre’s laughter. That’s around the point where Eponine and Enjolras barges into the kitchen, Feuilly close on their heels.

“You’re missing the movie,” Eponine says, planting herself in the chair beside Combeferre.

“So are you.”

“What’s so funny?”

“Grantaire thinks we’re all going to have to fight the leagues of the undead in the near future,” Combeferre smiles. “His theory is that that’s why we’ve come back.”

Feuilly shrugs. “Works for me. It’d be handy if you remembered, though. You were a good shot back then.”

Grantaire tenses up, still with his back to the others, and praying that none of them notices. He’s very aware of Enjolras’ eyes on him, the man leaning against the counter only a few inches away.

“I’m sure it’ll all work out,” he mumbles, pulling the now finished bowl out: it burns his fingers slightly, but he pretends not to notice.

“Why do you guys think we’re back?” Eponine muses, getting up again to steal said bowl and start munching on the popcorn without letting anyone else have a share. Rude. “I mean, I know we’ve heard about people whose said they remember past lives and all that, but it’s not… I mean, it’s not a common thing, is it? It’s not like people who say they’ve been kidnapped by aliens or something.”

“Maybe you _have_ all been kidnapped by aliens, and they planted fake memories in your brains,” Grantaire says, finally turning around to face them now that the focus is somewhat off of him.

“We could try finding out,” Musichetta’s voice sounds from the doorway. The tall girl, braid in place as always is looking at all of them with that certain fire in her eyes, the one that always reminds Grantaire a bit of Enjolras, and that always scares him a little bit, because it’s Musichetta, and she can be even more insanely spirited than their fearless leader or Cosette. Combined.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying already?” Enjolras asks. Musichetta’s smile turns wider.

“Not with my idea.”

Later, Grantaire will definitely blame Musichetta for ruining their otherwise normal movie-night – something set up exactly so they could ignore the current craziness happening around them. But no, they just had to go on a merry adventure to dig up the past – the very distant, and very literal past.

“I’m not digging up a grave,” he says from the backseat of Combeferre’s car, which they’ve all been crammed into. “That’s just… It’s too Frankenstein! We can’t do it!”

“We won’t necessarily have to,” Enjolras comments from the front-seat, because he apparently had infinite-shotgun or something ungodly like that. Musichetta’s driving (which is also ungodly in itself), and Grantaire, Eponine, Feuilly and Combeferre have all been crammed into the backseat, and he just really hopes they won’t get stopped by the police. Not to mention that Combeferre had only joined them so he could make sure they didn’t do anything too illegal, Grantaire is sure. Bossuet and Azelma had both refused to move, too focused on the movie, and the former finding their ‘venture too risky, the latter too insane.

Grantaire has always thought Azelma was such a smart girl.

“The idea isn’t bad, actually,” Eponine mumbles from somewhere behind Feuilly’s hair, the man practically sitting in her lap. “We tried the whole history text-books, but that’s not really… real, is it? This way we can…”

“Connect,” Combeferre mumbles, and Eponine sends him one of her beautiful smiles, the one that had made even Montparnasse all weak in the knees.

“Exactly,” she says.

“You’re going to connect to your past lives by holding your own bones,” Grantaire groans. “Are you all aware of how insane this is?”

“I repeat, we don’t have to start digging up…”

“We don’t even know where they buried…”

“It could just be anything from that time-period…”

“Probably best if it belonged to us, but we can…”

“Does anyone know if maybe we’re descendent from ourselves in some way or…”

 “We should have brought the popcorn along, I’m really hungry…”

“We’re here!” Musichetta’s voice is way too cheerful, like it always is, but definitely too cheerful for them driving around this late in the evening, ready to…

Grantaire is not even exactly sure what it is they’re trying to do. But they’re outside what looks like a cross between an antique-shop and a museum, and is that a replica of the _Mona Lisa_ hanging in the window, beside a Donald Duck-cartoon?

Grantaire’s head is starting to hurt.

“Are we going to have to break in?” Combeferre asks as they get out of the car. He sounds disapproving already. This is usually the point where Grantaire starts thinking things are going to get really fun, but right now he’s right there with the med-student. This is a horrible, horrible idea.

“I have the key,” Musichetta says. “I know the owner, he’s this old, really nice man… well, I say _know_ , I’ve talked with him on the phone – he lives in the other end of town, and I sometimes take care of the shop when the woman who usually does can’t. One time she went to prison,” she muses aloud, unlocking the bright red and rusty door. The hinges creak violently as it opens. “Something about fraud, I think.”

“Yay, it’s a crime-den,” Feuilly says, rolling his eyes. Grantaire can appreciate that someone else is losing excitement about this idea from hell as well.

“Shush,” Musichetta commands, marching into the shop. The others follow at a slower pace (except for Eponine, who practically leaps along, Combeferre going right behind her as if nervous she is going to injure herself in her excitement. Grantaire wonders if someone gave her an energy drink. Eponine on energy drinks is never a good idea).

The shop is dimly lit and as soon as he steps into it, Grantaire feels as if he is in another world entirely. Everything is outdated, be it by thirty or three-hundred years, the walls covered in replicas of art-works or cut-outs from papers, receipts and maps of the city. There are five sofas lined up next to each other, in a variety of colours, lamps of all shapes and sizes, candles and giant chests filled with bags and books and worn toys.

Everything is old, but it is also well-taken care of, as if this is a loving home for things who have outlived their use.

Grantaire is deeply unsettled by the place. And it’s not just the… freakiness of it all, it’s what they’re here to do, he realizes that as well. He reaches out a hand, steadying himself on a worn table that looks like it had been barely salvaged after nearly being torn apart once. He hasn’t drunk enough for this, he thinks.

Enjolras walks up beside him, reaching up a hand to touch him right between the shoulder-blades, and yeah, Grantaire needs a drink now, right now, as in now and not a second ago.

 _Now_ please _._

“You alright?” Enjolras asks. When the hell is that drink coming?”

“I’m fine,” he mutters, thinking, _please stop touching me, never stop touching me, ohgod, remove hand to other places, no just stop it._ “I’m just a bit…”

“This sort of went to hell, didn’t it?” Enjolras is smiling again and he is doing that in Grantaire’s general direction _a lot_ lately, and it’s making Grantaire feel powerful and about the size of an ant at the same time.

“Nah, it’s okay,” he mumbles. “No time for distractions, isn’t that usually your motto? It might be… I mean, it might be pretty important, figuring out why you’re all… why we’re back.” _And why I don’t remember._

It’s about then that he realizes that he doesn’t want to remember, because surely that will also reveal the reason of why he hasn’t yet and whatever reason it is, it can’t be good.

It just can’t.

“Are you disappointed we didn’t go grave-robbing?” Enjolras lowers his voice just so, and he really needs to stop doing that: he’s also still touching Grantaire, who is glad of the darkness in the shop, because he is blushing now. He grins.

“You didn’t hear my protests? No corpses for me, please. Or skeletons.”

“They sounded kind of half-assed, to be honest.”

“Okay, maybe finding Joly’s skull would be kind of great. Imagine how much it would freak him out!”

“You’re evil,” Eponine mutters from behind him, having overheard. “And that table you’re leaning against… guys, I think I recognize it.”

She bends down to investigate further, and Grantaire lets go of the table as if he’s been burned, Enjolras hand falling away as Grantaire moves. He doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or glad, but he feels even more conflicted as Enjolras shifts yet again, bringing him closer than before. _Shitfuckshit._

Grantaire is happy Azelma dropped the idea of a swear-jar.

Feuilly moves over to study the table as well. “Do you think it’s from the Musain? There was one table we didn’t use for the barricade, it was the one Grantaire was passed out on, remember? Oh, see! Scorch-marks – remember when Bossuet set it on fire?”

“Bossuet sets so many things on fire,” Grantaire mumbles. “Wait… passed out?”

“You were there at the start, but you went into the wine-shop to drink your brains out when the fighting started,” Feuilly explains, and Grantaire feels… he doesn’t know how he feels. Small and insignificant, but that’s how he always feels. He wonders why he hadn’t asked the others about this before, gone around and gotten details, because behind the overwhelming experience of remembering your former life and death, there must be some kind of knowledge of what _he_ had been running around doing. Why hadn’t he been interested enough to peruse that, ask them about it?

He knows why. _He doesn’t want to know._ It’s not just that he doesn’t want to remember – Grantaire suddenly feels like he is suffocating, in this too-tiny shop filled with too many memories, too many lives.

He doesn’t want to remember – in fact, he wants nothing to do with this. At all.

“That does sound like me,” he says. “I’m going to go be look-out.”

That’s ridiculous, because Musichetta has the key and she could lie her way out of anything, tell whoever discovered them that she had forgotten something of hers the last time she was here, and her charming friends where all helping her look because _oh, I borrowed those earrings from my friend and they were a gift from her fiancé and she is going to be devastated if I don’t return them to her, and oh no, now I’m crying officer, I am so sorry, look at me I’m a mess._ And if that didn’t work she’d shout at him about making too-hasty decisions and being a bigot because of course a group of young people couldn’t be here for completely legitimate reasons, and who did he think he was, shouldn’t he be out catching some real bandits, people where getting killed in the streets of Paris this very moment and he was hanging around here, playing babysitter for students, and she’d keep going until her victim was a blubbering, apologizing mess, because Musichetta is a force of nature, not to be toyed with.

Grantaire reaches the glorious outside and he breathes in deeply, fresh, clean air getting into his lungs. His hand that had been on the table burns, and he wonders how the other’s feel, looking at something familiar with new eyes, something that had been there before and is here still. How meaningful a goddamn table has suddenly become, simply for surviving through the times long enough to be here for them today.

He wonders at the massive coincidence of that. Wonders at them finding each other, in this big world, and hanging unto each other like this, until they all remembered.

He wonders why he _doesn’t remember._ Why he’s the only one.

He wonders if he is going to have to leave all of this behind, just to get away from this, because this is just another of the things that’s wrong with him, and he hasn’t felt this unsure since he watched his childhood home literally burn in front of his eyes.

If he didn’t have Azelma and Gavroche to take care of, and if it wasn’t because Eponine would kill him, Grantaire knows he would be coward enough to start running now, run and never look back.

The world is spinning in front of him, and he ends up sitting down on the sidewalk, hardly aware of someone sitting down next to him, hands in their pockets, silent as they keep him company in his freak-out session.

He expects it to be Combeferre, and he nearly gets a heart-attack when it’s Enjolras voice that breaks his thoughts.

“A part of me thinks Musichetta planned this, and knew that table was there already,” he says, tone care-free, as if he’s trying to distract Grantaire from the massive incoherency of this situation. “She’s sneaky enough to do that.”

“She is,” Grantaire mumbles, gaining his bearings. “But she seemed surprised as well. But I suppose you have a lead now, don’t you? You can contact the owner, figure out if he knows anything, or how he got that table,” he turns to find Enjolras is frowning, and he can’t help but smile. “You don’t like that this was too easy, do you?”

“It’s… it doesn’t sit well with me, no,” Enjolras admits, looking straight ahead. Grantaire can’t keep his eyes away – Enjolras is half-lift by the street-lamps, the moon too far away tonight to reach them properly, and he looks regal and dangerous and beautiful, half-covered in darkness.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything,” Enjolras says, and he really needs to stop saying things with that breathless voice.

Grantaire turns his head away, gaining courage. “Where we friends, back then?”

“In 1832?”

“Yes.”

“We were,” Enjolras answers quickly. Grantaire has to stop himself from getting up and walking away from the man.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m…” Enjolras starts, but then stops himself again. “No,” he says. “I’m not. We _were_ friends, Grantaire. Our… we were much like we are now, or rather like we were before… I mean, our dynamic… it was…”

“You mean the way we were before you found out I was in love with you,” Grantaire says it matter-of-factly, as if this is nothing, when really his heart is tearing itself apart, _no-one could have the slightest inkling of love for you,_ and he knew that, knows that, and it shouldn’t hurt to have it confirmed.

“ _Was_ in love with me?” Enjolras asks, and Grantaire is jolted back to here and now, and _what._

“What?”

“You only said… you said ‘was’. That you ‘was’ in love with me. Past tense.”

Grantaire’s heart starts beating too fast and he can only stare straight ahead, too aware that Enjolras is looking at him now, is waiting, is expecting an answer on this.

“Yes,” he whispers. And then he feels the anger settle in his chest. “You… I don’t… Is this to further inflate your own ego? Do you want me to confirm that I’m still pathetically devoted to you? That even after you’ve made it clear that you find it downright disgusting, I’m still so in love with you that it sometimes makes it hard for me to even breathe?!”

“That wasn’t what I…”

“Do you think it’s _funny_ , being in love with you?”

“No, Grantaire…”

“Do you think,” oh god, he can’t stop himself, getting up from the sidewalk, hands clenched into fists at his side. “That if I could actually control this, I would _choose_ this, being in love with someone who hates me to the core?”

“I don’t hate you!” Enjolras cries, getting up as well. His eyes are wide, and he’s breathing is ragged, as if he’s been the one just shouting. “Grantaire, I don’t, I never have.”

“Not even when I went to drink my brains out instead of supporting your biggest goal in life? Maybe that’s why,” Grantaire can’t breathe, he can’t _fucking_ _breathe_ , but he finds air to shout anyway. “Maybe that’s why I don’t remember: some stray bullet hit me while I was lulling it away in the arms of Morpheus, too drunk to even hear the gun-fire and the sounds of my friends getting slaughtered!”

Enjolras looks like he doesn’t know whether to be angry or terrified, and his eyes are even wider now, impossibly wide, staring at Grantaire as if he’s frustrated and sad that he can’t reach him. It’s the way Combeferre sometimes looks, the way Eponine looks and the way people just look in general, when they figure out exactly who it is they got saddled with.

“That’s not how you died,” Enjolras says then. Grantaire frowns.

“Well, I wouldn’t know.”

“No, and I am so sorry for that,” Enjolras takes a step forward, and Grantaire takes a step back, not able to… fuck, he can’t even _think_ right now, he can’t process this, and Enjolras needs to stop apologizing at every turn. “And I promise, I will do everything I can to help you remember.”

Grantaire sighs. “You don’t get it,” he says. “I don’t _want_ to remember. I don’t… what is there to remember, for me? Nineteenth century France, I doubt I was even half as well-off as I am today, and I’m a fucking train-crash today. Was alcohol easier or harder for me to get? Did I set all my paintings on fire back then as well? Did my parents die when I was little, did the rest of my relatives look at me like I had crawled out from under some rock, and they were looking for a new one to crush me with? For fucks sake, I didn’t even have Eponine or Cosette back then, I didn’t have… here I at least have… I can take care of-of ‘Ponine and Gav and Azelma, and they need me, but what the _hell_ did I have to live for back then?!”

He doesn’t want it: doesn’t want to remember an existence that is even more wrapped up in the golden God before him. Doesn’t want to remember living in a time where he was considered even more wrong than he already is now.

Enjolras says nothing, but he looks like he is searching for words, still staring at Grantaire with that look he can’t decipher, can’t even guess at.

“I am sorry if you think that,” Enjolras finally seems to settle on, and Grantaire wants to scream and tear his own hair out. “It’s the truth, Grantaire, when I say that we were friends…”

“We weren’t,” he snaps, not able to shut up, as is so often his curse. “We weren’t friends back then, and we aren’t friends now. We never have been: I show up because I’m a pathetic wreck that can’t get over you to save his own life, and you let me stay because Jehan and Combeferre bug you to, and because Eponine would fucking kill you and because you don’t actually have supreme rule of the café or bar, and so can’t ban me even when I say stupid, idiotic shit, that half of the time only leaves my mouth so that I can get a rise out of you, because fuck it Enjolras, you’re beautiful when you’re angry and I would rather you hate me and pay attention to me by shouting and cursing up and down because of the non-believer than have you just ignore me, but I can’t go on just smiling and nodding when you say we’re friends, _because we’re not_ _and we never have been!”_

He finally looks at the other man, and Enjolras has gone pale, as a sheet, but surely it’s the light playing tricks on his eyes, it’s not… Grantaire feels horrified, because he is shouting out on the open street, _at_ _Enjolras_ , and he’s just… fuck, whatever they had been trying to build these last few days, it’s a wreck now, lying at their feet, something resembling care a burning mess of long-kept truths coming out.

Grantaire is going to go home and rip his own tongue out. Why the hell was he given vocal chords in the first place?

“I’m…” he starts, voice hoarse from shouting, but he can’t, fuck, he doesn’t have any more words, doesn’t know how to salvage this, if there was anything to salvage to begin with.

It’s out and it’s said. It’s the fucking Titanic hitting an ice-berg, and he’s freezing to death in the water and in Enjolras’ silence.

“I consider us friends,” Enjolras finally says, his voice as cold as ice. “I’m sad to hear that you don’t.”

Grantaire feels light-heated, he’s shaking, and he’s sure he’s going to keel over any minute now, or throw up or just…

The door behind them bangs open, and Eponine rushes out.

“If Grantaire is quite done waking up all of Paris, we’re going now,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him away with her. “We’re getting a cab, Combeferre needs you inside Enjolras, and you two can talk this out when it’s not the middle of the night and somewhere I can supervise, so you don’t kill each other.”

“Eponine…” Enjolras makes a move to stop her, to stop _them_ , but Eponine glares at him and hisses a _‘no!’_ and he stops. Grantaire stumbles after her, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

They get all the way back to the flat, his oldest friend not saying a word on the way; she merely walks into the living-room and lies down on the sofa.

She’s crying, and it’s enough to snap Grantaire out of his semi-comatose state, walking over and sitting down on the floor beside the sofa, reaching up a hand to stroke her hair. He’s still wearing his jacket and shoes, but that’s not important right now.

“Fuck you,” she whispers into the pillow she’s buried her face in. “Fuck you and fuck Enjolras and fuck Marius.”

“I know you want to fuck Marius,” Grantaire says, and it only takes a second before Eponine’s fist has connected with his face. He reels back, hissing in pain, reaching up to check the damage: his nose doesn’t feel broken, and he’s not bleeding (yet), but dammit it hurts. Eponine glares at him.

“You’re a fucking bastard. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“But see, know you’re angry instead of sad!”

“I’M STILL FUCKING SAD YOU ASSHOLE!”

“I know,” he mumbles, leaning over and resting his head beside hers. It takes a moment, but then Eponine lets her own head fall back down again, her warm breath hitting his hair.

“I like Cosette a lot,” she says. “She’s fun and charming and she’s just… she’s nice, y’know? And I remember… she used to live with us, back in the other life, when she was a kid, and I was so horrible to her, because that’s just who we were back then. And she didn’t deserve it, but kids are so cruel, not that that’s an excuse, I just… and she just hugged me and said she was so happy that I’d found you now, in this life, said she was sorry to hear about my parents, but also glad I was away from them because they weren’t worth it. And she was right, and she meant it, and how is it alright for someone to be that good and kind?”

“You still love Marius.”

“I fucking hate Marius.”

“And I fucking hate Enjolras.”

He can almost feel her slight smile. “I fucking hate you, Grantaire.”

“I really, really, really hate you as well, ‘Ponine.”

She reaches up to shift her fingers through his curls. “We could hear you, you know. Everything you were shouting.”

“Great. Now they have it confirmed how pathetic I am.”

“No-one thinks you’re pathetic. Especially not us. We’re your friends, Grantaire. And the others, they were your friends back then as well. And if I had known you, I would have totally gotten over Marius in favour of you.”

“Now, that’s a lie.”

“Okay, that last bit is a lie,” she sighs. “Why can’t I just get over him?”

“I really don’t know. He’s like this bean-pole. He got lost in a shopping-centre once.”

“He was six!”

“He likes _Mamma Mia_.”

“It’s a really underappreciated musical.”

Grantaire tries not to laugh. He fails. “He’s a good friend,” he says then. “He’s very kind, he’s just confused. His heart is in the right place. He’s like this… idea, of what you’d like.”

Eponine tugs a little closer. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t really think you’re in love. Not with him. With the idea of him, maybe. And I’m not saying that you don’t love him, and that you won’t feel like dying because you can’t have him, because of Cosette and the two of them in general, and that you won’t mindlessly hate both of them sometimes, for taking this away from you. But he wasn’t for you, Eponine.”

“I know,” she says, quietly, sadly.

“That doesn’t mean that you aren’t brilliant. It has nothing to do with you, you know that.”

“I wish you would realize that as well,” she mumbles, face buried in his hair again. Grantaire closes his eyes.

“It’s not the same.” Enjolras most certainly isn’t Marius. And he isn’t Eponine – he lacks that fighter-spirit. He lacks the cunning and… well, to be fair, the self-worth to move past something like this.

“No, I don’t think it is either,” she says then. “Because Enjolras has definitely started looking at you differently.”

“Yeah, he’s busy wondering why I’m the only one who doesn’t remember.” He had become a fucking puzzle to be solved, and he hates it.

“That’s not it.”

“You know it is.”

“You’re a blind idiot,” she mutters. “It’s almost sweet, you can be blind idiots together.”

Grantaire feels his insides being torn apart. “Please don’t,” he whispers, and Eponine stops tugging at his hair, stops breathing, for a second, even.

“I love you,” she suddenly says. “Memories or not. It doesn’t matter. You’ve been with me for as long as I can remember, in this life, and it’s this life we’re living now. If you don’t want to be a part of this, this… whole reincarnation-thing, then just opt out. None of us will blame you.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“Things can’t stay the same forever. We’re still your friends, we always will be. I’ll still need you. I didn’t have you when I took a shot to the chest to save Marius. Gavroche didn’t have either of us when he was gunned down as well. Azelma told me our dad took her to America. She doesn’t want to say what happens, but she… she didn’t last long. She needs you as well – she’s terrified that you’re going to leave, _I’m_ terrified that you’re going to leave, or that you’re going to let this get to you. You can’t let it, you can’t. Please. I’ll carry you if that’s what you want,” she tugs on his hair again. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I promise,” it’s easy. It’s the only promise he has ever kept. “I promise, I do.”

“Thanks.”

“I need you as well. More than Marius does.”

“Marius has never needed me.”

“Marius needs instructions to walk in a straight line.”

Eponine only barely stops herself from laughing out loud. “You’re a moron.”

“I try,” he shifts a bit, peeking up to look at her. Her eyes are red, her cheeks puffy from crying. “You look like hell.”

“Fuck you.”

“We can do that later.”

“I swear, I will kill you,” she says, but she’s smiling, and Grantaire tries to focus on that. He lets that be enough for now.

 

****

****

*

 

The first time it happens, Jehan sees his mother.

The whole reincarnation-thing, it’s all a bit… wishy-washy. Odd. Half-done, almost. Because Marius has confirmed that he had been raised by his grandfather in this life, the same man that had raised him back in their first life, and though the man was dead now, Jehan would almost bet that, at some point or the other, he had remembered himself, remembered gunfire and Napoleon in power and everything.

But  Jehan’s parents, in this new life; they’re not the same. His mother’s hair is kissed by the sun, but he remembers muddy-brown curls and calling out another name in the streets of old Paris. His father’s eyes had been unkind, and now they are deep and smiling, crinkling at the corners.

It’s not the same people. They don’t have the same names, the same personalities, the same features. Jehan has two sets of lives and two sets of parents in his head, and the thought of the rules, of the logistics behind all of this is making even Enjolras and Combeferre’s heads hurt right now. So Jehan just tries not to think about it, too much.

But then he wakes, and his mother is there.

Claudine her name had been, the woman who had raised the young boy that died on a barricade. She had been smiling and happy, and had braided his hair even as he got older and his dad started frowning more and more over his useless son. She had been good and kind, spirited and clever.

Jehan loves his mother, the mother he has now, but he misses Claudine, he does.

Maybe that’s why she’s the one he sees.

Courfeyrac has snuck his way into his bed again (again, again…) and his is a comforting presence, curled up behind Jehan: for all that Courfeyrac flirts with everything and everyone, even now, they haven’t actually… done much, the two of them. There’s been kissing and hand-holding, and Courfeyrac moving close in moments like these, but he doesn’t actually ever try more than that, doesn’t even move his arms around Jehan to hold him. It’s kind of frustrating, but Jehan guesses he appreciates the sentiment – Courfeyrac wants to do things differently with him.

Courfeyrac, for all that he is wonderful, is the last thing on Jehan’s mind when he wakes and sees Claudine standing in front of him.

”Hello, my darling,” she says, and Jehan screams so loudly he wakes everyone in the flat.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- Spot the Hugo- and musical-references! Fun game to play when reading my fic. 
> 
> \- I’m dealing with a lot of mental health-issues myself, and I am trying to portray depression and alcoholism as accurately as I can, without making it seem like this is the only thing in Grantaire’s life, because it isn’t. If you feel offended by anything I write concerning this, please let me know: that is the last thing I want to do. I’m trying to write it as accurately as possible, and with as much respect towards the real people with it as possible, while still telling a story and staying true to the characters. 
> 
> \- Eponine and Grantaire’s friendship is very aggressive, and consists of swearing and insults: because they’ve known each other forever and can tell what is meant as a joke and what is not. Basically, they’re awesome.
> 
> \- Combeferre is everyone’s mother, but I always want to explore him as an actual human being as well. Hence his desperation to help Grantaire, and kissing him to show him that he _is_ loved: because why shouldn’t Combeferre be attracted to someone he sees a lot of good in, and who he furthermore also wants to help? This is not Combeferre/Grantaire, it's friendshippy at its most, but I wanted that moment to be there.
> 
> \- Sophie Turner is my head-canon for Azelma, because in my head, Eponine has brown hair, Gavroche blond, and Azelma red. Because they’re the Thénardier’s, and they’re all chameleons (and also, our old neighbours had children who all looked so different I was sure the mother was having an affair with two other men. But she wasn’t). And I always imagined Azelma dying of some disease early in life. Because tbh, that would almost be better than living with papa Thénardier alone.
> 
> \- This will be Enjolras/Grantaire eventually, but they have a long way to go yet. And Grantaire is just as frustrated and scared about his feelings as Enjolras, and he's breaking under the pressure of all this, so I figured it was his time to mess everything up. Maybe now they can start from scratch (or muck things up even worse!)


End file.
